Child Development
£1.3m for early language support training
Children's charities working with children with special educational needs and disabilities will share £6m a year to support children and their parents.
I CAN is leading training for early years practitioners in children's centres to develop children's language skills
I CAN, the children’s communication charity and the Council for Disabled Children are among those voluntary organisations to receive the funding.
The two-year contracts will run until 2013 and may be extended for a further two years.
The Early Language Consortium led by I CAN will run early language development training in children’s centres in the poorest areas of the country, with the aim of reaching more than 960,000 families.
The aim of the Early Language Development Programme (ELDP) is to ensure that more young children develop the language skills they need to be ready for school. I CAN said that evidence shows that children's understanding and use of vocabulary at the age of two is very strongly linked to their performance when they start primary school.
The consortium partners are: the Pre-School Learning Alliance, Action for Children, the Children's Society, Elklan CIC amd the Office for Public Sector Management.
The programme, which will run until March 2014 and is worth a total of £1.3m, will deliver training to practitioners in children’s centres, on the importance of early language development to improve communication and language for all children under five, but particularly those with special educational needs.
It will particularly focus on how to improve the early language skills of children from birth to two living in disadvantaged areas.
The programme will create 450 hubs of early language expertise. Working closely with speech and language therapists and health visitors, lead practitioners in children's centres will be trained to roll-out a package of support providing high quality training and resources to up to 16,000 practitioners in 4,000 children's centres and early years settings.
Virginia Beardshaw, I CAN chief executive, said, 'I CAN and the wider voluntary sector has long campaigned for a focus on early language. We know that getting children's communication right in the early years benefits families and prevents problems later on. It enables children to learn, to make friends and to fulfil their potential.
'All the ELDP partners are delighted the Government is continuing to prioritise and invest in children’s communication development. We are particularly pleased that the voluntary sector’s expertise in speech, language and communication is being recognised by the award of this contract.
'We look forward to working with parents, professionals and the Department for Education to fully embed communication skills in early years settings, enabling children to achieve the best start in school, at home and in life.'
Dame Clare Tickell, chief executive of Action for Children who led the EYFS review, said, 'The earliest years in a child’s life are absolutely critical, providing the essential foundations for attainment, wellbeing, happiness and resilience. Early language development is at the heart of this. That’s why my Early Years Foundation Stage Review proposed communication and language as one of three prime areas of learning.
'I’m delighted that Action for Children is part of the Early Language Development Programme which will help give early years workers the confidence and expertise they need to develop this vital skill in young children.'
Neil Leitch, chief executive of the Pre-school Learning Alliance, said, ‘We are pleased that the department has recognised the important work undertaken by earlier initiatives including Early Child A Talker and that, via this new project, essential work to support children’s language development will continue, albeit on a much-reduced scale.
‘This programme will play a leading role in helping children’s centres to integrate their services with other local providers and share practitioners’ expertise across the sector.’
Voluntary organisations will deliver programmes and also pilot support in the 20 SEN Green Paper pathfinder areas.
Children’s minister Sarah Teather said, ‘We're proposing some of the biggest reforms to special educational needs and to help disabled children and we're testing out the best ways of doing this over the next year. But it's important that children, young people and their families get help and support now, from organisations they trust.
‘That's why we're funding and extending programmes that have been successful so far and that parents have told us they value – like short breaks and helping young people make the often difficult transition from school to employment or training.’
The other organisations to be awarded contracts are:
- the ES Trust with the National Children’s Bureau will extend the Early Support programme, currently for children from birth to five-years-old, to improve services for older disabled children and develop key worker training;
- the Council for Disabled Children will support local parent partnership services across England that provide parents with information about their rights and responsibilities under SEN legislation, as well as local information to support their child;
- the IMPACT consortium (SERCO with the Short Breaks Network) willhelp local authorities to run short breaks for disabled children and involve parents in running them;
- a Consortium led by the National Development Team for Inclusion will work with local authorities, young people and their families to support them during secondary school and in training, employment and living independently when they leave school.
